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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24050365">hope leading nowhere, going nowhere</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/xathira/pseuds/xathira'>xathira</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Gravity Falls, Infinity Train (Cartoon), Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon &amp; Comics)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>BAMF Mabel Pines, Feels, Gen, Poet Soul Wirt, Science Buff Dipper, Sunshine Greg, basically crack, impossible hijinks, slightly aged up characters, sometimes the big kids swear</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 02:42:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,442</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24050365</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/xathira/pseuds/xathira</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“There has to be an end,” Dipper mutters, jaw turned into his shoulder so that he glares out at the colorful forest.  “Nothing goes on for infinity.”</i><br/>---<br/>Four kiddos wake up on a train that goes on forever.  Their combined experience with the impossible might not be enough to get them back home.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>65</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>hope leading nowhere, going nowhere</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Took a break from writing an angsty Beast!Wirt series to shove some of our favorite siblings on the Infinity Train!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Fifteen year old Mabel Pines wakes up to flowers bigger than her face, dirt on her clothes, and the biggest crow she's ever seen curled up asleep on her chest.  She yawns, blinking at the riotous rainbow of petals surrounding her like the skirts of a hundred flamenco dancers.  They’re decidedly <i>tropical,</i> not anything that should exist in the northern climate of Oregon… but Mabel has fought unicorns and seen secret labs hidden under ancient trees, so she takes the beautiful, impossible scenery in stride.</p><p>“Mm… pretty.”  She reaches up to bat a blossom striated with orange and yellow and red, the exact color of a nectarine.  It has a citrusy perfume that reminds her of sour hard candy.  Mabel breathes deep and grins muzzily at the bundle of blue-black feathers still balled up below her chin.  “You live here, little guy?”</p><p>Her fingers comb curiously through those inky feathers once.  Then the crow startles awake and bites her—not with a beak, but with a mouthful of little razor teeth.</p><p>Mabel screams and reflexively knocks the crow—<i>whatever</i> the heck it is—off of her with her other hand.  It squawks not unlike the bird she believed it to be and flounders frantically over the grass, trying to right itself, and as it flips around Mabel sees that it has <i>four</i> wings instead of two, each one tipped with tiny claws, and its flailing tail is more like a cat’s than the plume of a corvid.  <i>Dinosaur,</i> her abruptly alert mind realizes.  The creature that had been using her as a mattress is a teeny weeny dinosaur.</p><p>And it’s <i>adorable!</i></p><p>“I’m so sorry sweetie, you surprised me!  What a little cutie you are!”  Mabel, now one hundred-percent awake, sits up as best she can with a canopy of huge flowers bobbing above her.  “Let’s be friends, ‘kay?”</p><p>She offers her palm for the micro-dino to sniff.  It ruffles its dark plumage at her suspiciously, doubling its size, and flits off toward the vast green forest canopy.</p><p>Mabel calls after it and has to shield her eyes from the sunshine pouring in between rows and rows of broad jungle leaves.  A frown tugs at her nearly permanent smile.  These are all palms and fern fronds, all of them absolutely <i>gigantic,</i> none of them the sort of plants she and Dipper would find in Oregon <i>or</i> California.  Humidity glistens off the emerald patchwork and hazes the hot, heavy air.  Exotic birdsong plays Marco-Polo through the branches and looping vines.  That sugary scent from the flowers mixes with the earthy pall of mud and rain.  It’s July-hot outside, which is to be expected, but Mabel is pretty sure she passed out under the stars and towering firs of Gravity Falls last night.</p><p>The picnic blanket Mabel vaguely remembers dragging outside isn’t under her.  She pats her pockets for her phone, and swears when all she finds is a handful of Jolly Ranchers.  Anxiety nibbles her stomach.  No phone is bad.  She doesn’t know where exactly she is, or how she got here, and given she just saw a <i>literal dinosaur</i> there’s an excellent chance she’s still in Gravity Falls but she should KNOW how she managed to hike from the Mystery Shack to the middle of the freakin’ rainforest.</p><p>“Hello?  Dipper?”</p><p>Mabel hits rewind on her brain and stands up, scanning the beauty around her with a critical eye.  She should have left a path of crushed flora if she brought herself here, right?  Footprints?  What does her brother always tell her when they’re hunting for magical creatures?  <i>Think,</i> Mabel, surely there’s evidence to explain what’s going on if she looks hard enough.  Did something bring her here?  Did she <i>teleport?</i></p><p>“Dipper?”  She yells his name louder.  Her anxiety has gone from a nibble to a <i>gnaw.</i>  There’s no obvious sign of where she passed through and no clue that would point to her having been dropped at this spot unless she fell out of the sky.  “This isn’t funny, you jerk, <i>please</i> answer me if you’re out there…”</p><p>Her fingers twist themselves together, itching to bleed her worries into crochet or embroidery or a good scratch between Waddles’s ears—and oh, shoot, Waddles isn’t here either, but Mabel took him outside with her to tell him all her problems and what if a <i>bigger</i> dinosaur ate him?  Then she’ll be lost and pig-less and probably nobody knows that she’s here and she’ll rot alone—</p><p>A green glowstick flash blinks from her right palm.  Mabel tilts her head and brings her hand closer to her face, as if that will resolve the bizarre sight into a more reasonable thing.  The number 64 is enclosed in bright brackets on her skin, as smooth as if she’s been tattooed with neon light.  When she makes a fist, the glow pokes into the creases of her palm.  “Wh-what?”  Open hand.  Close hand.  Wave hand so quickly the number blurs and draws a toxic swoosh in the air.  It doesn’t hurt the way a new tattoo should… in fact, the number doesn’t feel like anything at all.  It’s simply… there.  </p><p>Mabel decides that she is both delighted and disturbed when a shriek—a <i>human</i> shriek, and one she recognizes—interrupts the ambient tropical bird soundtrack.  Adrenalin instantly spikes her blood.  She charges full speed into the jungle, slashing at elephant-ear leaves and twigs with her bare hands to clear her way like a bedazzled Terminator.  That was Dipper—she’d know his panicked squeal anywhere.  Oh, god, let him be okay and not halfway down the throat of some vicious prehistoric monster!</p><p>“DIPPER!  I’m coming, doofus, tell me where you are!”</p><p>“<i>Mabel!</i>”  His shout is straight ahead.  Mabel vaults a log studded with mushrooms bigger than frisbees and hits the ground without stumbling.  All those early morning runs did wonders for her endurance; she rips past the verdant undergrowth and inhales to call out to Dipper again when her twin screams first.  “<i>Don’t come over here there’s a really steep drop off and it’s really dangerous and—</i>”</p><p>The earth plummets away from her.  Mabel is airborne, arms flailing, as she careens over the tip of a cliff hidden by a lush collection of ferns.  She doesn’t even have time to screech before her body sails over a ginkgo branch and she lands, <i>hard,</i> on a wide span of moss, right next to her petrified brother.</p><p>“And I can’t get out,” Dipper finishes lamely, huffing out a shaky breath.  He’s slumped cross-legged against the sheer wall of the pit, wearing the same clothes he was last evening—just like Mabel.  Why had neither of them changed into pajamas before bed?  Had they not <i>gone</i> to bed?  Mabel hadn’t been planning on staying the <i>entire</i> night outdoors, she’d only wanted an hour or so to clear her head.  “Honestly, Mabel, <i>listen.</i>”</p><p>Mabel is busy holding back tears at the ache spreading from her knees, hip, elbow, and shoulder.  She glares sideways at Dipper from where she’s crumpled on springy bryophytes and soil and shoots him the stiffest middle finger she can manage.  “I h-heard you hollering like a little girl so I came to rescue you.  Boy, do I regret that now!”</p><p>Dipper colors at her insult.  The twins still share the same amber eyes, the same turned-up nose with a faint brown-sugar dusting of freckles over the bridge, but puberty has squared Dipper’s jaw and lent him the awkward beginnings of their grunkles’ stocky frame.  One would <i>think</i> he’d use this shape to his advantage, packing muscle on a body clearly predestined for it… but Mabel is the one close to getting her blackbelt, not him, so despite his annoyance he doesn’t retaliate with a withering comeback of his own.</p><p>Instead, he grabs her right wrist and turns her palm outward.  A thoughtful crease divides his eyebrows.  “You too, huh?”     </p><p>“Me too?”  Mabel takes back her hand and gingerly sits up, hissing at the dull pain throbbing over her side.  “You’ve got one of these… wacky glow-in-the dark tats?”</p><p>Dipper shows her his own palm.  “Thirty-one.”</p><p>“Ha!  I’ve got sixty-eight!  I win!”</p><p>“Seventy.  You’ve got seventy.”</p><p>“Huh?”  Sure enough, her number has jumped two integers.  “I bet I earned two more points rushing in to save your ungrateful butt.  Why were you screaming, anyw—”</p><p>Dipper pulls her close without warning, sealing her mouth shut with his vivid 31.  “Don’t move,” he mutters.  “Don’t make a sound.”</p><p>This is a tone of voice Dipper rarely uses.  The last time he’d spoken this low, this tense, the twins had been stuck in the nest of a hippogriff who clearly wanted to decorate its home with their guts.  Mabel settles down without question.  Her gaze follows Dipper’s to the high opposite edge of the pit.  She hears what her twin must have been listening for while he sat here alone… a scrape-rustle of leaves brushing leaves and claws dragging dirt, a significant weight thudding with every laborious step.   </p><p>A shadow passes over them both.  Dipper’s arm squeezes around Mabel’s shoulder.  Mabel holds her breath and stares up at the massive, scaly muzzle of a tyrannosaurus rex.</p><p>It’s impossible to mistake the animal for anything else, even though the color of its hide defies any history book’s drab illustration.  The twins have actually <i>seen</i> a living, breathing, sharp-toothed Cretaceous monster before (thank you, subterranean sap-cave) but <i>that</i> rex had been a predictable army green, designed to blend into its natural habitat.  <i>This</i> dinosaur takes Mabel’s breath away.  She’s only ever found that striking, blazing red on the petunias her mother grows at home, or on the new Ferrari Old Man McGucket drives around town in.  It is <i>gorgeous.</i>  And it’s so, so hard to be afraid when the tyrannosaurus currently snuffling at them is <i>this</i> stunning.</p><p>Hot air from the rex’s nostrils stirs Mabel’s fringe.  The king of dinosaurs makes a deep, ponderous noise that reverberates through the earth and into her bones; she’d describe the sound as a <i>purr,</i> not a <i>growl,</i> because it lacks the texture of aggression Mabel has heard in the past.  After a beat, the creature rubs its jaw along the cusp of the pit.  It croons again.  </p><p>Mabel’s intuition activates.</p><p>She taps Dipper's knuckles to get him to ease his hand from her mouth.  “I think it’s friendly,” she whispers as softly as she can.  </p><p>Dipper audibly grits his teeth.  “It’s a carnivore,” he hisses back.  “It’s frustrated that it can’t reach us all the way down here.”</p><p>“You sure about that?”</p><p>“<i>Yes.</i>  If it could get to us, it would have already.”</p><p>“No, Dipstick, that’s not what I meant.”  Mabel snarks at him in her normal volume.  “I think—”  </p><p>Dipper shushes her ferociously and attempts to maneuver her behind him when the rex croons louder and lowers its head toward them, jaws slightly parted to display rows of pearly daggers.  “Mabel!  Stop talking!”</p><p>“It isn’t frustrated—I think it’s worried about us!  C’mon, Dipper, <i>look at it.</i>  Look at that face!”</p><p>That face is doing its best to push closer.  Clearly the rex’s neck isn’t long enough to allow it to gobble the siblings up like the last M&amp;Ms in the bag, and that makes the animal strain and whine futilely over their heads.  Clumps of dirt, rock, and plant matter crumble into the pit from the rex’s movement.  </p><p>Dipper is almost sitting on Mabel now in his panic to protect her and prevent her from trying to touch the deadly red snout.  He abandons the pretense of silence to shrill at her from the top of his lungs.  “Do you have any idea of how crazy you sound right now?  There’s a maneating dinosaur staring us down in a HOLE and—and I don’t even know how we got here!  One moment I’m in our room, and then <i>poof!</i>  Rainforest!  There’s no rainforest in Gravity Falls, Mabel!  Most of these plant species should be <i>extinct!</i>  I tried hiking to higher ground to see if I could recognize the mountains…”</p><p>He trails off at the odd look Mabel gives him.  “How long have you been walkin’ around here, Bro-Bro?”</p><p>Wincing at the plaintive rumble of the rex, Dipper glances at his wristwatch.  “Thirty minutes, I think.  I woke up at seven-fifteen.  I thought I was alone here.”</p><p>“I wonder why we didn’t wake up in the same spot.”  Mabel rubs her sore elbow as best she can with Dipper half-crushing her behind him.  “What’s the last thing you remember before waking up?”</p><p>A line of drool falls from the t-rex’s mouth and catches the rim of Dipper’s hat.  The fact that he doesn’t fling the hat off in disgust reveals how Mabel’s question cuts him.  “I remember our fight,” he says, consciously businesslike.</p><p>Mabel bites her lower lip.  “Yep.  I remember that, too.”</p><p>“Cool.”</p><p>“Cool.”</p><p>“Doesn’t explain why we’re here, though.”</p><p>“No, it does not.”  Mabel fiddles with the stringy hem of her cutoff shorts.  “What were you doing before you fell in the pit?”</p><p>Dipper bristles, but it’s unclear if it’s due to what she’s asked or to the loud whimpering emanating from the tyrannosaur’s oral cavity.  “Oh, what was I doing?  Let’s see… I was wandering a jungle by myself with no cellphone service and no memory of how the hell I left the Mystery Shack.  Then I saw Clifford the Big Red Murderer and tried running away and fell and now I’m trapped with you.  That’s all.  We’re back where we started.  This is hopeless.”  He throws up his hands and yelps when the dinosaur pokes out its tongue to taste his fingertips.  “WHOA.  Did you see that?!”</p><p>Mabel saw that.  And she’s convinced: the colossus her brother is so terrified of is a big fat marshmallow.</p><p>“Excuse me good sir.”  Mabel extricates herself from Dipper’s body shield with a classic wrestling switch, rolling her brother into a pretzel as she lurches to her feet.  Ignoring his hysterical pleas and commands to stay down, duck, <i>get back here,</i>  Mabel stretches her arms above her head and hops to meet the rex’s snoot in a hug.</p><p>As soon as she grips the smooth crimson scales, the tyrannosaur rears its mighty skull back and lobs her from the pit like a puppy tossing its favorite toy.  Mabel lands harmlessly on her butt in the same ferns that conceal the pit.  She waits, poised to somersault to safety, as the magnificent dinosaur considers her.  It brings its muzzle into her space… inhales her scent, blowing her hair back with its voluminous exhales… makes that deep purring noise that isn’t a growl… and stuffs its head back into the pit to croon at Dipper.</p><p>“Mabel?!”  Fear tightens Dipper’s voice.  It sounds as if he’s scrabbling at the floor of the hole to dig himself farther from the rex.  “Mabel are you alive?  Are you okay?  Did it <i>eat</i> you?  Oh my god, please, Mabel, please don’t be dead!”</p><p>“Bro!  Trust the dinosaur!”  Mabel doesn’t have a lot of room to shout over the pit’s precipice with an immense rose-colored cranium in her way.  “Grab onto his nose and don’t let go!”</p><p>Dipper blurts a word that would have cost him five dollars in the Swear Jar—but a second later the rex is tossing the young man into the fan-shaped leaves of a giant rhubarb, safe as can be.  He doesn’t so much as lose his drool-stained hat in the process.</p><p>Mabel dashes over to help pull him upright, noticing that her number has scrolled back down to sixty-eight.  She checks Dipper’s palm when he accepts her assistance.  “Huh.  Still thirty-one for you.  How did I get docked points for getting us out of the pit, but your tattoo hasn’t changed?”</p><p>Flustered, Dipper scythes an arm in front of her so that he remains between Mabel and the tyrannosaurus rex—who has not budged from where it’s standing.  A swishy, snappy noise emanates from behind it; the dino is wagging its tail and smashing plants left and right.  If that’s not one of the most precious babies Mabel has ever seen, she’ll eat Dipper’s ballcap.</p><p>“That’s one of the most ferocious hunters to ever live,” Dipper warns.  “Maybe it just lifted us out so it could devour us at the same… time?”  The rex turns away from them and marches into the glimmering jungle steam without a backward glance or final threatening rumble, leaving Dipper to trail off uncertainly.  Once the firetruck brilliance of its scales cannot be discerned among the myriad shades of green and jewellike hues of wildflowers, the rigid arches of Dipper’s shoulders relax.  He scratches the nape of his neck.  “Well, that was anticlimactic.”</p><p>Mabel lightly swats the back of her brother’s head.  “Told you it was friendly.”</p><p>“How was I supposed to believe that?  If you were wrong, we’d be dinosaur chow.  That’s not the way I want to go!”</p><p>“Good thing I wasn’t wrong, then.”  Affection for the rex quickly sours into irritation for her twin.  The gap in her memory might fail to elucidate why she and Dipper are lost, yet Mabel can recite the harsh words they’d thrown at each other last night verbatim.  That conversation had bruised her worse than her unexpected fall and her brother’s attitude isn’t helping.  “So… what’s the plan?  My genius insight got us out of that sticky situation—now it’s <i>your</i> turn.”</p><p>Dipper nods, assuming responsibility as if there’s no question as to why he should be in charge.  “Right.  We’ll start by hiking to a higher elevation, to get an idea of the landscape.  I c-couldn’t find any familiar peaks before, but that might be because we’re in a valley.  If we can orient ourselves, I’ll be able to figure out how to get home.”</p><p><i>I’ll be able to.</i>  Not <i>we’ll</i> be able to.  Mabel shrugs and absently rubs the spot on her hand where the teeny feathered dinosaur had bitten her.  “Sounds good, Bro-Bro.  Lead the way.”</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>★ -~--------------------·~- ★</p>
</div><p> </p><p>“You’re doing great, Bro, lead the way!”</p><p>Nine-year-old Greg whoops encouragement as Wirt hauls him over snaking roots and red-coned stalks of ginger and sprawling ferns.  The little boy is beaming and excited, dressed for a day at summer camp, and oblivious to the certain death zeroing in on them like a missile.  He thinks this a fun game, a <i>race,</i> not realizing that if they lose the penalty is disembowelment.  Or dismemberment.  Or both, in any order, which makes eighteen-year-old Wirt want to puke all over himself but he CAN’T puke all over himself because that will slow them down and if they’re too slow then they’ll die—</p><p>“Uh-oh!  Bogey at three o’clock!”  Greg points urgently somewhere to his right, his other hand squeezing Wirt’s so hard it’s cutting off his circulation.  “Evasive maneuver, go go go!”</p><p>Wirt yanks Greg closer and zags around the base of tree so wide a cottage could be built inside its trunk.  A savage roar pierces the older boy’s ears and stabs his body with another jet of cortisol.  The tropical forest rustles and shatters in the wake of creatures with shredding talons and serrated teeth and that bloodthirsty cacophony arrows closer and closer with each of his puny human strides.  They’ll be on the brothers soon.  There’s no escape.  </p><p>“Greg, I love you,” Wirt pants brokenly.  His burning lungs feel as if they’re tearing to pieces inside his chest, pummeled by the relentless hammer of his heart.  “If they get me I need you to keep running, okay?  Just keep running as f-fast as you possibly can and don’t look back, <i>p-promise me,</i> run and find somewhere safe to hide!”</p><p>“Got it,” Greg mock-salutes.  “Watch your step!”</p><p>The terrain dives down a sudden decline, valleying toward who-knows-what below.  Wirt curses and alters their course to sprint diagonally over the earth, terrified that he or Greg will trip if their momentum hurtles out of control.  The monsters hunting them slice the same direction to follow unerringly and Wirt wails with hopeless frustration.  Do these things not give up?!</p><p>A pair of jaws splits from a group of fronds and chomps at Greg, missing him by centimeters.  Wirt grabs the top strap of Greg’s backpack and throws Greg forward out of harm’s way.  In the same motion he jams his bony shoulder into the carnivore’s narrow snout and shoves it off balance, sending it barreling downhill—screeching like a banshee.  Another enraged roar throttles the atmosphere, near enough that Wirt feels its force rippling against his spine.  “Shit,” he gasps, beyond caring if Greg can hear him swear.  “Shit, shit, <i>shitshitshitshit—</i>”</p><p>“Look over there—more people!”  </p><p>Wirt dares to peer beyond the ground immediately in front of him to seek whomever Greg is waving at.  Two teenagers are walking up the incline side by side in the rapidly shrinking distance; they pause, distracted by Greg’s welcoming shout, and wave tentatively back.  </p><p>“<i>RUN!</i>” Wirt bellows at the maximum volume.  “RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!”</p><p>A nanosecond of hesitation.  Then the strangers are bolting too, matching each other beat for beat.</p><p>Wirt and Greg catch up in seconds, already traveling at top speed.  The boy and girl are both shorter than Wirt is and maybe a year or two younger, which instantly triggers Wirt's Big Brother instincts.  Dirt flecks their clothes.  Soil smears their arms and legs.  Wirt unconsciously angles himself so that he runs equally between them at their backs, tugging Greg the entire time, so he can keep an eye on everybody and also ensure that the first one to go down if those predators catch up is <i>him.</i></p><p>"What are we running from?!" the girl asks, daring to peek at Wirt over her shoulder as she veers past the stilt roots of a walking palm.  Her hair is long enough to whip him in the face when she turns her head—and it might be a trick of the light, but it appears that thin streaks of blue, violet, and green intermingle with the brown. </p><p>Greg laughs at her question so hard he wheezes.  Wirt has to yank him by his backpack again to help him keep up on his stubbier legs.  </p><p>“It’s not a joke,” Wirt cuts in quickly as both strangers spare a glance at him.  “I swear to god, we are in <i>danger.</i>”</p><p>The other teenage boy—he <i>has</i> to the girl’s brother, they look too similar for it to be coincidence—groans in exasperation and uses his free hand to keep his question-mark ballcap straight.  “That doesn’t tell us what we’re running from.  Mind giving us a rough idea of what’s going to kill us?”</p><p>“Is it a t-rex?” the girl pipes.  Her tone is hopeful.</p><p>Greg laughs harder, to Wirt’s dismay.  “A t-<i>rex?</i>” he guffaws.  “That’d be so cool!  We’re actually being chased by—”</p><p>An earsplitting screech drowns out Greg’s voice and every coherent thought in Wirt’s rapidly churning brain.  The strangers (siblings?) jump and automatically reach out to take one another’s hands.  Right as their fingers lock, the bamboo and bromeliads at Wirt’s heels explode outward from the force of three savage dinosaur bodies catapulting at the kids.</p><p>“RAPTORS!”  </p><p>Greg announces this as if he’s revealing that all of them have won a new car.  In a weird way, his tone is somewhat appropriate.  The raptors are scaled and feathered in shades seen on sharp, expensive sports vehicles: cobalt blue tiger-striped by lightning-yellow, eye-searing lime green marbled with ultraviolet, hot magenta dappled all over in robin’s-egg cyan.  There’d been a dayglo orange raptor, too, but that was the unlucky creature that Wirt had shoved off its feet.  All of the dinosaurs would be awe-inspiring to observe from a distance—but instead they’re snarling at the nape of Wirt’s neck and whittling away his remaining lifespan with their fangs.</p><p>“Do THOSE look friendly to you, Mabel?!” the hat-wearing boy shouts at the long-haired girl.  “Should we turn around and give them a <i>hug?</i>”</p><p>The girl—<i>Mabel,</i> Wirt tries to commit that to memory even though they’ll all be dead soon—sticks her tongue out at the boy but doesn’t let go of his hand.  She’s slightly faster than he is, and seems to be towing him with her like Wirt is desperately towing Greg. </p><p>“They’re not friendly,” Greg speaks up unnecessarily.  “They’re fast, agile killing-machines—<i>oop!</i>”</p><p>The lead raptor—the candy-blue one—hisses and cobra-strikes Greg’s backpack.  Once its teeth have snapped shut around the outer pocket it digs in its heels and hauls backward, sending Greg sailing off his feet and almost jerking Wirt’s arm out of its socket.</p><p>Wirt miraculously keeps his grip.  His other arm wraps around Greg’s middle, anchoring him, as Greg fights not to lose his backpack.  “Let go of it!  Slip out of the straps!” the older boy hollers, appalled.  “Greg, just let them have the bag!”</p><p>The soda-pop green raptor smatters out a series of aggressive avian clicks and lunges at Wirt.  It snares his pant leg in its jaws and whips his lower body to the side so hard Wirt hears his joints crack.  The strangers cry out in consternation; in his peripheral vision Wirt catches them skid to a stop and vacillate between diving in to help or darting to safety, pinned by the attention of the snarling magenta raptor.</p><p>“We have to DO something, Dipper, holy crap holy CRAP!”  </p><p>“You want to interfere with THAT?!”</p><p>A frustrated prehistoric squeal punctuates the blue raptor wrenching its skull sideways and throwing Greg—backpack attached—toward a vine-laced trunk.  Wirt twists his torso so that he absorbs the brunt of the landing impact in his lats muscle; Greg falls unceremoniously on Wirt’s stomach, crushing the oxygen from Wirt’s battered lungs.  The green raptor has not released its denim prize and shakes the poor young man’s frame like a rag doll in a pitbull’s mouth.</p><p>“Yeah,” Mabel spits acidly.  “I want to interfere with <i>that.</i>”</p><p>Her right leg snaps upward to roundhouse kick the magenta dinosaur in the face.  It squawks—chicken-like—and rears from her path.  Ere Dipper can stop her, she runs at the green raptor and tackles it around its feathery neck—forcibly unhinging it from Wirt’s leg.  </p><p>“No!  Bad raptor!”  Greg slaps at the blue raptor as it hovers over him, fangs bared, waiting to seize his backpack a second time.  “This is <i>my</i> property!  Beat it!”</p><p>Wirt feebly tries to pull Greg away from the azure devil’s killer set of dental cutlery, wheezing from his Greg-compressed diaphragm, but a tectonic <i>thud</i> has him freezing where he’s sprawled against the tree trunk.  Another <i>thud</i> accompanies the first, harder this time, and Wirt is apparently the only one who can feel it.  There is a colossal mass headed toward them.  Bigger than the raptors.  Bigger than any of the assorted dinosaurs they’ve encountered thus far.  The ruckus from the raptors must have attracted a more foreboding predator in the arena.</p><p>Dipper has picked up a branch and is haphazardly swinging at the magenta raptor without actually aiming at any part of the animal.  </p><p>
  <i>Thud.</i>
</p><p>He chokes out his sister’s name when Mabel is bucked roughly off the green raptor and dumped to the ground next to the incapacitated Wirt.  </p><p>
  <i>Thud.</i>
</p><p>The green and blue bugle to each other, beckoning over the magenta, and the three carnivores leap for the kill as Dipper screams—</p><p>And something the size and color of a firetruck batters through the underbrush and headbutts the raptor trio halfway to the canopy.  The feathered predators shrill as they fall—and upon hitting solid ground, all of them turn tail and flee into the jungle, abandoning their prey without a fight.  Wirt is unable to do anything else but gawk up at the underside of a cherry-colored jaw, which is attached to a cherry-colored neck… which is attached to a gargantuan, cherry-colored tyrannosaurus body.  </p><p>The beast shifts on its feet, and even this motion sends shock waves into Wirt’s skeleton.  Wirt hugs Greg in farewell, his brown eyes welling with tears.  “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you,” he blubbers as best he can while his chest is laden with seventy pounds of little brother.  “T-try to—try to roll over, m-maybe he’ll eat me first.”</p><p>Adjacent to him in the dirt and fallen leaves, Mabel draws her arm up to lay a soothing hand on Wirt’s elbow.  She fell on her front and is just as winded, if not more so, than Wirt is.  “Dunworry,” she croaks.  “Fffriendly… dinosaur.”</p><p>The t-rex rumbles at the sound of Mabel’s voice.  Wirt has never owned a cat… but if that rex isn’t <i>purring,</i> he’ll eat Greg’s backpack.  </p><p>Dipper jogs to them and helps Mabel sit upright, babbling out a string of “are you okay?” and “where does it hurt?” as he catalogues any new scrapes or contusions Mabel endured.  He only spares a brief look at the towering tyrannosaur, despite the fact this carmine monster casts a shadow so expansive all four of the kids are shielded from the sun.</p><p>“The t-rex saved us?” Greg asks after his shock dissipates.  He does not budge from where he’s flopped over Wirt’s abdomen.  Awe rings in his tone.  “That’s… <i>awesome.</i>”</p><p>“Clifford the Big Red Murderer,” Mabel moan-laughs.  She pushes Dipper half-heartedly away, playing off the pain she must feel from eating clods and wrestling a raptor for a few dangerous seconds.    </p><p>“Deus <i>rex</i> machina,” Wirt coughs, surprising all of them.  Dipper chuckles belatedly and scoots over to disentangle the two brothers, using the same clinical care he’d shown to his sister—who recovers quickly enough to stand and latch onto the rex’s statuesque leg.</p><p>“A good boy!  A VERY good boy!” she praises, hugging the pillar of red scales with all her strength.  Wirt hears a loud, exaggerated <i>muah!</i> as she smooches the dinosaur’s shin.  </p><p>Greg follows her example, bounding up to the rex and petting its toes—each of which ends in a claw that could carve Wirt out like a pumpkin.  Wirt leans heavily on Dipper’s shoulder while the stouter boy assists him into a more vertical stance.  </p><p>“I owe my life, and that of my brother, to your majestic pet tyrannosaurus.  Our debt cannot possibly be repaid by thanks alone, but that is all I may offer.”  Smiling wanly, Wirt holds out his right hand for Dipper to shake.  The number on his palm glows as brightly as it did when he first woke up today.</p><p>Dipper stares at Wirts hand for a beat.  Then he extends his right hand as well, showing off his number with a shrug.  “Don’t worry about it, buddy.  I am also glad none of us were eaten by raptors.  We’re all in the same boat.”</p><p>“Train,” Wirt corrects him.</p><p>Dipper’s forehead creases.  “Sorry?  I’m pretty sure the expression is ‘same <i>boat</i>’—”</p><p>But Wirt’s focus is sliding over Dipper’s head to the jungle, alarm on his features.  The two boys have to put their conversation on hold: Mabel and Greg have jumped onto the t-rex’s tail, and are hooting maniacally as the dinosaur wanders back into the rainforest.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>★ -~--------------------·~- ★</p>
</div><p> </p><p>Fifteen minutes later, Wirt and Dipper convince their siblings to end their adventure and regroup.  Greg and Mabel reluctantly slip from the rex’s tail like toddlers throwing tantrums on a playground slide; the rex, either unaware of their tomfoolery or beyond caring, continues on its mysterious journey through the winding forest halls until it is needed again.</p><p>Dipper is the one who has them all sit in a circle and properly introduce themselves.  Mabel enjoys arts, crafts, and violent self-defense; she has a pig named Waddles.  Dipper is rabid for all things science and paranormal phenomena; he built his own telescope.  Dipper has made all the charm bracelets adorning his wrists (“Wards,” he says) himself; Mabel dyed her own hair (“This style is called <i>oilspill.</i>”)</p><p>Wirt is a college student going into his second year, studying liberal arts (“But music is my passion.”)  He’s not taking any summer classes, so he came back home to work a summer job and spend some time with his little brother, Greg—who’s been busy with summer camp activities, hence the backpack (“I’m on all the teams!  I do all the sports!”)  They share a pet bullfrog named Jason Funderburker.</p><p>All in all, their combined abridged biographies don’t reveal any traits the kids share that explain why they’re in the same dinosaur-infested jungle.  The only thing all of them have in common is...</p><p>“Y-you guys have them too.  The numbers.”  Dipper juts out his palm and splays his fingers as if that will make his 31 glow more intensely.  “Do you know what they mean?”</p><p>Wirt glowers at his radioactive 74.  Greg traces his 25 with the pointer finger of his opposite hand.  “No idea,” the older boy grouses.  “I think they might be age-related.  Mabel, are you Dipper’s older sister?”</p><p>“Technically,” Mabel says smugly.  </p><p>“We’re <i>twins,</i>” Dipper hisses vehemently.  “It doesn’t make sense for your number to be almost twice mine just because you were born a few minutes before I was.”</p><p>“Sure it does.”</p><p>“It does <i>not.</i>”</p><p>“Maybe it isn’t an age thing, then,” Wirt reasons, attempting to diffuse a rapidly spiraling argument.  He blushes as if embarrassed he thought of that theory in the first place.  “I mean, I’m eighteen and Greg is nine.  If the same scale applies for us as for you, my number should be in the hundreds.  Or thousands.”</p><p>“I’m half as old as Wirt is,” Greg declares proudly.  Wirt ruffles his head affectionately, and the little boy absolutely preens.  Mabel is silently, ferociously jealous of the closeness the two brothers share.</p><p>“Half as old and half as tall,” Wirt affirms.</p><p>Greg yelps indignantly.  “Hey!”</p><p>“And half as cool.”</p><p>“<i>Hey!</i>”</p><p>Now it’s Dipper’s turn to end the playful banter.  He clears his throat with as much subtly as a generator kicking on, to Mabel’s eye-rolling annoyance.  “Nobody knows what the numbers mean, good talk.  Anybody have answers for all the <i>dinosaurs?</i>  I’ve seen some… <i>regular</i> tropical fauna around, like parrots and monkeys, so…?”</p><p>“Iguanodons,” Greg cuts in.  He is visibly vibrating with the sort of dinosaur fever only a nine-year-old can possess.  “We saw some iguanodons.  And some brachiosaurus periscoping their long necks over the trees.  And a triceratops herd, and an archy… archaeo…”</p><p>“Archaeopteryx,” Wirt supplies.  He wears the weary mask of one who has listened to dinosaur rants for at least a solid month.  </p><p>“<i>Yes!</i>  That one!  But we hadn’t seen a t-rex until just now.”  </p><p>“This place is chock-full of dinosaurs!” Mabel exclaims, matching Greg’s sparkle.  “This morning I had a little black one with four wings sleeping on me… then we saw Clifford… and then those nasty velociraptors!”</p><p>Dipper holds up a hand to pause her train of thought.  “Those weren’t velociraptors, those were most likely overgrown deinonychus.  Velociraptors are like, turkey-sized.  And the one with four wings was probably a microraptor.”</p><p>“Nerd,” states Mabel flatly.</p><p>“Die… dye…” Greg squints as he tries to pronounce the unfamiliar word.</p><p>“<i>Dye-non-y-cuss,</i>” Wirt enunciates.  When Dipper blinks at him, impressed, Wirt shrugs bashfully.  “I’m good with words.”</p><p>“Right,” Greg says, “those things.  Do you guys know how to tell if they’re a boy or a girl?”  The gathered party gawks at him.  “I wanna know.  Because of reasons.”</p><p>“Look under their dinosaur skirts,” Mabel jokes.  </p><p>“Jurassic Park reference,” Dipper says dryly.  “Appropriate.”  He none-too-subtly shifts himself to better face Wirt and Greg, angling his shoulder to block Mabel from his line of sight.  “So… are you two from Gravity Falls, or a neighboring town?  It’d be nice to know how far we are from home base.”</p><p>“We’re from New England,” Wirt answers dumbly, sharing a look with Greg.</p><p>“The opposite coast!” Mabel crows.  “What’re you guys doing in Oregon—y’know, besides getting lost in the jungle?  Are you visiting family?  Summer camp?  Do you have a <i>lover</i> out here?”</p><p>Wirt blushes and stammers “L-lover?!” at the same time Greg tilts his head and asks “Oregon?”  The brothers glance at each other and then back to the twins.  </p><p>“We’re not in Oregon,” Greg says cautiously, waiting for Dipper or Mabel to admit they’re playing a very lame prank.</p><p>“Well, not <i>normal,</i> Oregon,” Dipper concedes.  “If you’ve never visited Gravity Falls before, the difference is pretty, uh… jarring.  It’s not unheard of to find forgotten artifacts and lost worlds tucked into the surrounding woods.  Mabel and I have actually encountered dinosaurs before.  Not <i>neon</i> dinosaurs.  Regular ones.”</p><p>Wirt and Greg talk over one another a second time.  “We aren’t in Oregon.”  “You guys have seen dinosaurs before?!”</p><p>Mabel and Dipper do the same.  “We sure HAVE, champ!”  “What do you mean, we aren’t in Oregon?”</p><p>Dipper shushes Mabel by taking off his hat, plopping it on her head, and flipping the rim over her face.  “Trust me, as impossible as it seems, a tropical rainforest in Oregon is <i>possible</i> if it’s Gravity Falls.  The state actually has natural temperate rainforests like the Valley of Giants so—”</p><p>"Nnnnnnerrrrd."</p><p>"<i>Mabel.</i>"</p><p>"These guys don't want a geography lesson, right?"  Mabel hasn't taken the hat off yet and is using it as a prop to make Greg chuckle, pretending that the hat’s bill is a duck’s beak as she talks.  </p><p>"What I'm getting at," Dipper continues through gritted teeth, "is that there's an explanation behind <i>this.</i>"  He indicates the equatorial lushness with a wave of his arm.  "It’s brain-breaking and confusing and a tad unsettling, but you’ll feel better if you accept it.  Were you hiking when you stumbled on this place?  Is there a nature trail that leads back to Gravity National Park?  Were you separated from your campsite?”</p><p>“Brain-breaking,” Wirt laughs breathlessly.  “Oh, buddy, you have no idea.”</p><p>“We <i>could</i> be in Oregon, Wirt.”  Greg smiles at this possibility, hugging his backpack.  “You can <i>both</i> be right.”</p><p>Wirt laughs again with a harder edge.  “Yeah.  Sure.  Hey, Dipper—does this Gravity Falls place have its own wasteland?”  </p><p>“It used to,” Mabel mumbles darkly from under the hat’s rim, plucking a blade of grass.  </p><p>Dipper sits up straighter.  “Are you telling me this jungle is adjacent to a—a wasteland?  As in, a desert?  Or are we talking post-apocalyptic hellscape?”</p><p>“Post-apocalyptic hellscape,” Wirt and Greg say together, with vastly contrasting attitudes.</p><p>"There's a high desert east of the Cascades," Dipper says weakly.  “I wouldn’t say it’s a <i>hellscape…</i> it’s actually quite beautiful if you can appreciate—”</p><p>“Miles of scorched, featureless earth?” Wirt interjects.  “Dark skies bleeding the color of meat and ash, with a single searing line of hellfire on the bleak horizon?  Hopeless nothingness as far as your starved eyes can see?  <i>That’s</i> your high desert?”</p><p>Dipper blanches.  “Er… that doesn’t sound like anywhere in Oregon I’m aware of.”</p><p>“It sounds like a post-apocalyptic hellscape,” Mabel says, chipper.  “Would you say this jungle is an <i>oasis</i> scenario or… are the two side by side…?”</p><p>Wirt rubs a hand over his tired face.  For perhaps the first time in their lives, the twins get the sense that they aren’t the only ones with a wild backstory.  This possibility thrills Mabel and leaves Dipper feeling as though he is falling backward into another hole.  A deeper one.  With spikes at the bottom.</p><p>“Tell you what,” the older boy says, posture slumping with exhaustion or defeat.  “We’ll suspend further discussion until we find the exit to this car.  If it follows the rule of the last car we were on, it’ll have a door that leads to a bridge between the jungle car and whatever the next one is.”</p><p>Mabel chirps and Dipper croaks: “The last car you were on?”</p><p>Greg flops onto his spine so that his backpack protrudes off him like a stuffed belly.  He pats it absently while he stares at the rainforest canopy.  “It was just a really easy, really dumb maze.  You could see over the walls to where the path was s’posed to go.  Bor-ring.”</p><p>“You can imagine our surprise going from the world’s most cynical labyrinth to… well, Jurassic Park on acid.”  Wirt rolls his eyes, wry. </p><p>“A car,” Dipper repeats.  Manic light flickers in his dinner plate eyes.  He stands abruptly, making everyone but Mabel flinch, and starts to pace a short path behind his sister.  “As in a <i>train</i> car?”</p><p>“Or a ROLLER COASTER car?” Mabel swivels the ball cap backward.  Her expression is openly fascinated, at complete odds with the mask of horror and confusion overtaking Dipper’s features. </p><p>“Train car,” Wirt affirms.  “We’re on a… oh, jeez, how do I put this… it’s sort of… it’s not what you’d expect— </p><p>Greg jumps in, bouncing where he sits.  “We’re on a train!  A huuuuge train that goes on forever!  It’s just like… all train forwards and backwards.  The Noah’s Ark of trains.  Nothing but train.  All train all the time.”</p><p>“This jungle… is inside a train.”  Weighty skepticism hangs off each of Dipper’s words.  He glances at Wirt to see if the older boy is hiding a smirk, but Wirt gazes levelly back at him with a firmly pressed mouth and a damning nod.  Deadly serious.  Dipper huffs and pinches the bridge of his nose.  “You guys know that sounds unbelievable, right?  I’m willing to accept a tropical rainforest north of the equator, but not that it somehow fits inside a train car.  Not without proof of some kind of mechanism.  There’d have to be procedurally generated holographics, t-treadmills, animatronics...”</p><p>“It’s not more unbelievable than a dreamworld suspended in a floating bubble,” Mabel quips.  When Wirt and Greg gape at her—one with uncomfortable puzzlement, one with sparkling wonder—she shrugs her shoulders and gives them a lopsided grin.  “Long story, boys.”</p><p>“But that’s so <i>complicated,</i>” Dipper whines.  “It’d be one thing if this were a pocket dimension constrained to a single enchanted train car… but these guys are telling us there’s a TRAIN of worlds like this one.  A train that goes on FOREVER.”</p><p>“And ever and ever and ever,” Greg reiterates.  </p><p>“Or as good as ever and ever and ever,” Wirt concurs morosely.  “Trust me… we’ll find a way out of here, and when you see it…”</p><p>“We’ll shit bricks?” Mabel finishes sunnily.  She flaps out a hand and stops Dipper from treading a trench into the dirt by grabbing his knee.  Then she pats him as she would a spooked pony, and her twin grudgingly sits back down beside her—after retrieving his hat and replacing it on his head.</p><p>“There has to be an end,” Dipper mutters, jaw turned into his shoulder so that he glares out at the colorful forest.  “Nothing goes on for infinity.”</p><p>Greg starts comfortingly patting Dipper’s other knee, so that between him and Mabel, Dipper cannot escape consolation.  All Wirt has to give is a resigned mask of acceptance that he and Dipper share between their two bizarre siblings.  </p><p>“I sure hope not,” the older boy sighs.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>★ -~--------------------·~- ★</p>
</div><p> </p><p>The quartet traipses along the silty banks of a teal-green river, which rushes too fast for them to cross.  Dipper was the one to suggest they follow the water if only to have a bare concept of a plan; the others agreed unanimously.  If the previous car had been a maze, then perhaps the jungle car is the same.  All they have to do is pick a path—the <i>correct</i> path—and, as Wirt and Greg promise, a door will free them.</p><p>As the kids travel, the blazing sun dips lower in the pristine blue sky.  It appears to be setting where the river terminates at a vast body of water (“The ocean!”  “In a TRAIN, Mabel?!”) and this glorious distant scene only convinces them that they’ve successfully navigated the forest.</p><p>“It’s still a few more miles,” Wirt warns, snagging Greg’s backpack to stop his little brother from galloping the rest of the way.  “Don’t be fooled.  See all those trees we have to hike past?”</p><p>Greg squints and pinches the horizon between his thumb and index finger.  “Whaaaat?  It’s not so far.  Maybe it’s just an optical illusion.”</p><p>“Where the trees just get tinier and tinier?”  Mabel blows raspberries as she mimes squishing the panorama spread in front of them.  “You’ve done it, little dude, you hacked the train.”</p><p>While Dipper rolls his eyes in profound exasperation, Wirt tugs experimentally at Greg’s backpack.  The eldest member of the team frowns.  “Why does your backpack feel so heavy?  What did you pack for camp—a cinderblock?”</p><p>Greg cinches the straps of his bag tighter.  “Y’know… stuff.”</p><p>“You took that binder of Pokémon cards, didn’t you?”  A noncommittal noise squiggles out the corner of Greg’s mouth.  “Greg, Mom said to leave those at home!  No wonder it was so hard running with you,” Wirt admonishes.  “You want me to carry it until we get to the door?”</p><p>“I’m fine,” says Greg quickly.</p><p>Next to him, skipping and picking flowers, Mabel snickers.  She tries to tuck a blossom behind Dipper’s ear—and when that fails, simply stuffs the stem down the back of his shirt.  “Are those back in Vogue now?” she asks.  “I think Dipper still has all his old cards.”</p><p>Dipper rips the flower from his collar and glares at his sibling, his ears redder than the petals.  Wirt immediately attempts to soothe the situation by laughing too loudly and declaring that he, also, has a collection back at home under the bed.  He sounds so painfully awkward that it’s impossible for Dipper to be embarrassed.</p><p>A hill momentarily hides the ocean (lake, whatever it is) behind the rustling fronds of tall, tall palm trees.  Mabel complains that she’s thirsty, and Dipper announces that the water in the river is potable after taking a wary sip.  All of them are sweaty and worn out from travel.  Greg is mid-sentence asking Wirt for a piggyback ride when his breath hitches and he sneezes so hard he scares five scarlet macaws from the branches overhead.</p><p>His sneeze doesn’t screen a raptor’s faraway shriek.</p><p>“Guys…” Mabel whispers.  She and Dipper stop walking and step to stand back-to-back, scouring the forest three-sixty.</p><p>“I heard it too,” Wirt confirms.  He loops an arm around Greg and drags his brother to his side, hunched slightly over him like a mother hen.  “We should keep going.  Before they catch up.”</p><p>“Are these <i>new</i> raptors?” Dipper sputters.  He doesn’t move again until Mabel leads him forward by the lower hem of his shirt, and he’s too frazzled to swat her hand off.  “How many of those things are in this jungle?  What’s the ratio of heroic tyrannosaurus to bloodthirsty deinonychus?” </p><p>They crest the hill, scrambling to set pace with the river’s current.  The landscape opens back up; foliage recedes to lend a spectacular and unmarred view of expansive sapphire-blue about a quarter mile away.  The low-hanging sun sheds amber glitter over gentle waves.  A certain <i>glint</i> winks at them from the sandy beach, something none of the kids could have glimpsed with dense jungle plants blocking the picture.  Greg and Wirt gasp in recognition, the former pointing as if he’s spotted gold bricks.</p><p>“That’s the door!  I see the exit!”</p><p>Dipper replaces Mabel as lead dog.  He jogs to the front of the party and spins to address them, affecting a forced aura of authority that nobody quite buys.</p><p>“Let’s not be hasty.  We should move quickly <i>and</i> efficiently and stay on the alert for… the raptor pack…”</p><p>“Out of breath, Dipping Sauce?” Mabel snarks.  “Tucker yourself out playing leader?”</p><p>“Mabel,” Wirt breathes.  He’s stock-still.  One hand is on Greg’s shoulder like a vice.</p><p>“Yeah, Wonder-Wirt?”  Mabel uses the same brand of sass on the taller boy.  “Why are you guys acting so weird?  I thought we were on our way to the door—”</p><p>A hot exhalation ruffles her hair.  A magenta muzzle parts the leaves next to her like a diva’s glove through a verdant curtain.  Two other reptilian faces—racecar-blue and ripe lime and highlighter-orange—triangulate Wirt and Dipper’s positions.  The raptors from earlier had snuck up on them as stealthily as panthers, and none of the kids had heard so much as a talon-snapped twig.</p><p>“They’re back,” Greg warbles.    </p><p>The blue deinonychus unleashes a sound like steam sizzling off a griddle.  The crest of feathers adorning its head stands at attention as its slit-pupiled stare zeroes in on the youngest human in the group.</p><p>“I’m going to do something absurd,” Dipper mutters from his barely open mouth like an amateur ventriloquist.  The raptor closest to him—the alien-green—whips its snout toward him and parts its jaws in a warning hiss.  “Get ready to go on three.  Got it?  One.”</p><p>“Wait,” Mabel peeps.  The magenta dinosaur snorts and sends a lock of her hair flipping over her face; she doesn’t dare brush it off her nose.  “Do <i>not</i> do a crazy self-sacrifice thing.”</p><p>“Definitely don’t,” Wirt adds.  The electric orange deinonychus is sniffing at Greg’s backpack and utters a subwoofer rumble that the remaining three hunters echo.     </p><p>“Two.”</p><p>“Um,” Greg says in a muted, scared-small voice.  “I think this is maybe all my fault?”</p><p>Dipper yells “THREE!” at the exact moment Wirt gawks down at his brother—so he misses whatever the stockier lad slams into the lime raptor’s mandible.  Was that a handful of glitter?  Magic dust?  Sand?</p><p>A pained screech shatters all of their ears.  During the heartbeat of disruption among the dinosaur ranks, Mabel and Dipper—and Wirt and Greg—practically trip over themselves sprinting for the beachside door.  </p><p>The door looks exactly like the one leading into the jungle car: a simple arched plank with a bifurcated figure eight handle.  It’s erected with no supports and nothing behind it but those sunkissed waves.  It looks like a useless art installation, a cruel joke, except despite Mabel and Dipper’s transient hesitation Wirt and Greg are reaching out to it as if it’s a priceless life raft.  </p><p>Wirt, on his longer legs, reaches the door first.  His arms strain as he tries to force the handle to spin but… it’s locked.  Regardless of which way he jams his fingers, the door will not budge, will not crack.  “It’s supposed to—it can’t be LOCKED, the other door wasn’t locked so how come this one—”</p><p>“Lemme try!”  Greg pushes Wirt out of the way and pries at the handle.  When nothing happens, he braces his feet on the door itself and <i>heaves.</i>  “I don’t understand?  Were we s’posed to find a key?”</p><p>“Too late for that,” Dipper groans.</p><p>Mabel links her arm with Dipper’s.  Wirt blocks Greg like a human shield.</p><p>The deinonychus pack traps them in a tense half-circle, sharing a whirring vocalization that wouldn’t sound out of place in a flock of toucans.  Their rave-party feathers flare.  Their razor teeth shine.  Their curved claws are perfectly designed to slice delicate human bodies into appetizer-sized morsels.  And yet… they do not attack.  Not even when Greg wrestles himself from Wirt’s embrace and shrugs off his backpack to let it thump into the sand.</p><p>Wirt whimpers as if someone has kicked him in the stomach.  Terror roots him in place.  “Greg.  Please.  G-get back here.”</p><p>“Sorry.”  Greg says it without turning around to acknowledge his brother; he’s speaking to the dinosaurs that are growling and drooling at him, not Wirt.  “I didn’t know it was yours.  I thought it was abandoned.”</p><p>He broadcasts each movement with exaggerated posture and slow, slow timing, watching the raptors as closely as they are watching him.  Carefully, Greg lowers himself to one knee.  Carefully, he unzips the main compartment of his backpack and dips a hand inside.  Carefully, he extracts one smooth, polished-copper egg, the size of a football, and nestles it at his feet.  </p><p>The blue raptor croons.  Its feathers fall flat against its body.  When Greg nudges the egg toward it, the predator burbles gently and stretches its neck out to meet the egg with its muzzle.  </p><p>At the instant of contact, the rest of the pack relaxes.  The lime, magenta, and orange deinonychus lose interest in the teenagers and switch to <i>churr</i>ing over the metallic egg.  While they’re distracted with their joyful reunion, Wirt wrangles Greg to safety.</p><p>“You… you stole their… you <i>kidnapped</i> their egg?  <i>That’s</i> what was in your backpack?  Th-their actual <i>child?</i>”  It requires immense self-control for Wirt to mold his outrage into compact bullets that won’t disturb or anger the raptors again.  His fists clench and unclench on air, as if he can’t make up his mind between throttling Greg or pulling his own hair out by the roots.  “We could’ve died!”</p><p>“Why didn’t you give it back the first time they were chasing you?” Dipper adjoins.  Mabel thwacks him on the chest with her knuckles to shut him up.  “What?  All of this could have been avoided if he—Mabel, <i>ow.</i>”</p><p>Greg’s eyes are misty.  His fingers knot themselves and his chin hovers down over his throat.  His eyes skate the sand and his shoelaces.  “I really did think the egg was all alone.  I didn’t want to leave it there… and then I thought it’d be so <i>rad</i> to have a pet dinosaur, and Jason Funderburker always wanted a younger sibling to take care of, like you take care of me…”  His voice closes off, stuffed under a genuine lump in his throat.</p><p>“You’re not a bad kid,” Wirt murmurs, half-grudging and half-fond.  “But you <i>are</i> insane.”</p><p>“Gee, thanks.”</p><p>“Don’t mention it, Candy Pants.”</p><p>The raptors suddenly start chirping and jostling one another to get closer to the egg.  All four kids shut their mouths and hold their collective breath as the stolen egg begins to <i>rock.</i></p><p>The motion starts slow and gradually ratchets faster, more frantic.  A furious peeping can be heard from inside the shell, which stirs the surrounding raptors into more of an excited frenzy.  At last the cracking eggshell splinters.  Mini raptor limbs brutally eject pieces of the copper cuticula in all directions.  Amidst an adoring audience, a baby deinonychus shrieks up at the sky in infantile rage.</p><p>It is lemon-yellow, the same color as the tiger stripes on its blue parent.  Duckling fuzz covers areas of its body that will carry sleek feathers once it has become an adult.  Spots of red adorn its cheeks like blush, and the same fiery color streaks its tail.  Greg takes one look at it, lights up with a smile, and declares: “Pikachu!”</p><p>Mabel whoops in approval.  “Oh my god it totally <i>is</i> Pikachu!”  She twitches forward as if she wants to scoop the raptor chick into her arms, but Dipper halts her in the nick of time.</p><p>“It’s… cute,” Wirt says, surprised.  “Not unlike a spring chick, fighting its way into the world protected and cherished by those wiser than itself.”</p><p>The baby raptor—Pikachu?—fumbles in the sand, snarling like a disgruntled pomeranian at the grown dinosaurs cooing at it.  When it squirms in Greg’s direction, everyone holds their breath, anticipating the parents to attack… however, the blue raptor observes peacefully, and burbles encouragement to its young when Pikachu yips at the little boy.  Pure viciousness.  </p><p>“Can I keep it?” Greg begs, fingertips brushing the fluff sticking up from Pikachu’s brow.  “Pleeease?  Just while we’re on the train.  I’ll bring her back home to her mom before we leave, promise.”</p><p>“No,” Wirt answers without turning around.  He’s working on the door again—although, this time, the handle swivels around smoothly.  “We don’t know when we’ll be back, and we have to keep going anyway.  You don’t think it’d be kind to separate Pikachu from her family, do you?”</p><p>The baby raptor nibbles Greg’s fingers like a puppy.  Greg sighs until his lungs are empty.  His disappointment breaks Mabel’s heart.  </p><p>“Nah… I can’t be selfish.”  A final scritch on Pikachu’s yellow chin, and Greg joins Wirt by the door.  </p><p>Dipper and Mabel hesitate to show their backs to the raptor pack, but since the predators are utterly fixated upon their new infant, the twins figure they’re probably safe.  They nod at Wirt as a signal to open the portal from this hot, humid jungle paradise into the unknown.</p><p>“Prepare yourselves,” Wirt warns.  </p><p>The door swishes open.  They all step through, Wirt leading and Greg lingering to wave goodbye to the raptor pack.  He doesn’t lag behind for long; there’s a bridge connecting the jungle car to the next section of the train, and Greg skips across as if skipping is a competition.  </p><p>Wirt proceeds more prudently, one hand on the bridge railing… but Dipper and Mabel pause, hearts in their throats.</p><p>The brothers had been right.  It truly is a post-apocalyptic hellscape out here.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This was really just an excuse to write something with dinosaurs in it.</p><p>Fun tidbit: the "velociraptors" in the Jurassic Park movies aren't velociraptors at all - the dinosaur they most closely resemble is Deinonychus (but that name doesn't roll off the tongue as well).  Deinonychus was feathered.  T-rex was almost certainly feathered too (and might have had little lizard lips!) but I went with Smooth T-Rex<sup><span class="small">TM</span></sup> for this chapter.</p><p>The numbers on the children's palms were completely random - I had a number generator pick something between 20 and 100 and there you have it.</p><p>This is not and will never be a pinescone fic.  Heads up for the future of this fic, if I continue.</p><p><i>If</i> I continue... what should the next car(s) be?</p></blockquote></div></div>
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